


Should Have Known

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Everyone Thinks They're Together, F/M, Meeting the Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 10:30:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jemma's parents get the wrong idea time and time again. (or do they.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should Have Known

Meeting the Parents

1.

Its parents’ weekend at the university and Jemma’s not nervous, not at all. She’s excited truly, a bit nervous, but mostly excited. Which was why she spent the last few hours bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, nervously checking her computer to make sure everything was alright with her parents’ flight and that it would be there on time.

Her antsy attitude had already driven her roommate away, the older girl insisting that Jemma needed to take a chill pill and grow up.

She is certain that nothing could diminish her excitement, or well, she was, until she had decided to stop by Fitz’s room and see when his parents were getting there. She had hoped to meet them; after all, she fully intended to introduce him to her parents. That’s what best friends were supposed to do, right?

Except, when she gets there and asks about his plans for the day, he shrugs his shoulders like it’s nothing and says, “studying probably. I need to get the lab report for Professor Logan’s class done.”

“Your parents aren’t coming up,” she asks a frown etched onto her face, leaning against the doorframe to get a better look at Fitz who is sitting on top of his bed, textbooks spread out around him for another day of studying.

“No,” he says, “I mean, I didn’t except them to. They’re busy. Can’t expect people to take time out of their busy schedules for little ole me.” He’s trying to act like he doesn’t care, a small smile and a fake little laugh, but it doesn’t quite do the trick.

“Oh Fitz…”

He shakes off her sentiments insists that it’s no big deal, but she can see the cracks, and she doesn’t want to see the cracks.

He’s been the one person to keep her sane when she’d been sitting in her dorm room homesick and stressed because being the freaky genius kid isn’t always a good thing, and for once she had found somebody that understood.

That’s why she calls her parents as soon as she’s left his room, asking if she could bring a friend along to dinner, because she can’t just leave him there.

Thankfully they don’t refuse though she never really expected them too, not after she had proceeded to talk up how incredible he was for at least a good thirty minutes.

So much so that when she finally introduces them to Fitz her mother smiles at him and says, “It’s nice to finally meet you, we’ve heard so much about you.”

His little embarrassed smile and shuffle is worth it all, and dinner actually ends up being great, because apparently her parents can hit it off with just about anyone and Fitz is so similar to her that he just sort of fits in, and everyone’s laughing, talking about their research, and just genuinely having a good time.

It’s as the day has wrapped up, when she goes to say goodbye to her parents and insists that she’ll be home the next long weekend, that her mum leans in and squeezes her into a tight hug before saying, “and, sweetheart, your boyfriend is always more than welcome to come with you.”

“Mum, we’re not together,” Jemma says, because they’re totally not, she doesn’t even think of Fitz that way. They’re just friends, and honestly she’s not even sure if she completely likes guys yet, especially not college guys, even if Fitz doesn’t really count since they’re both sort of the child prodigy types too young to actually be in college.

Her mum just levels her a disbelieving look, before winking at her, “of course not, sweetheart.”

 

2.

It takes her about two years to finish her degree, already preparing for graduate school. Thankfully this ends up being just about the same amount of time to Fitz to do the same, and so come graduation day they’re both decked out in black robes, unable to stop smiling because yeah, they totally did it.

The funny thing about graduation is that suddenly everybody who ignored her and called her a freaky genius kid behind her back suddenly wanted pictures with her now that the graduation ceremony is over. It didn’t even faze her that this was a problem, popping on the same bright smile that had been on her face the entire day, squeezing into the side of a picture or pressed together with as many people could fit in a single snapshot. It was exciting really.

Or it would have been if a certain somebody wasn’t pouting off to the side, well he isn’t pouting exactly… It’s complicated.

Honestly Jemma isn’t sure what to make of this particular facial expression. She’s only seen it on a few rare occasions, but she had noticed him refuse a photo anytime somebody asked him to join them claiming that he doesn’t like cameras or something silly like that, which was absurd, because Jemma knows for a fact that he has a camera in his room.

“Fitz, come on,” Jemma nags, bounding over to him to tug him off of his seat.  

And while he had resisted everyone else’s attempts to join in on the photos, the second she holds out her hand to him he barely even hesitates before grabbing it and letting himself be dragged into a few photos.

“Now how about one of just the happy couple,” somebody says, honestly Jemma’s not even sure who it is at this point, and for the longest of moment’s she doesn’t even realize that they were talking about her and Fitz until she notices a few sets of eyes cast over in their general direction.

“Oh no no no,” she insists quickly, “we’re just friends, I swear!”

Except that’s kind of hard to believe when they’re still holding hands, and she’s been the only one to actually manage to get him to not only take a photo with them, but to manage a smile that seemed genuine.

Though she didn’t realize any of that until nearly a month later when one of the girls from their graduation had mailed her some of the pictures, and she had spent hours looking over them.

The pictures are spread out on her floor of her childhood bedroom a phone is pressed against her ear as she reassures the person on the other side that he looked fine.

 “I’ll show you them later,” she says, “when we’re at MIT, I’ll pin them on the walls so everyone can see.”

The groan she gets in reply makes it all worth it.

Before she can say anything else there’s a knock on her door, “hold on,” Jemma hisses into the phone, hopping up a bit too quickly to open the door to where her dad is standing on the other side.

“Hi dad,” she says, and the voice in her ear quickly insists that he can go so she can deal with family stuff.

It’s a bit hard to balance her conversations when there are two voices coming at her from different sides, her dad says something about the new episode of Doctor Who that’s supposed to be on the air in a few minutes and Fitz keeps trying to say his goodbyes while making background commentary. It’s a just a tad distracting, but she manages to keep a straight face and sort of nod along long enough that things go just fine.

Until he dad turns to leave, and calls over his shoulder, “tell your boyfriend that you mother and I say hello.”

“Dad, he’s not my,” she starts, but it’s too late he’s already down off the hallway, and by time she’s turned back to the phone in her hand she notices that oddly enough he had already hung up.

Fitz never hangs up without saying a proper goodbye…

 

3.

Time passes a lot quicker without Jemma even really realizing it. One day she’s sitting around a lab at MIT working on her second PhD, and then next there’s a recruiter for a super-secret government agency standing in the flat she shares with Fitz taking about aliens and supernatural occurrences, offering them a place within SHIELD.

Somehow they go from Fitz and Simmons the geniuses at MIT to secret agents.

Though through everything they’re stuck together eternal lab partners, glued to the hip and at some point it stops being Fitz and Simmons and they become FitzSimmons, without her even realizing it.

Honestly, Jemma doesn’t think anything of it, until somebody else points it out. Her parents are in town and she’s convinced Fitz to come along to eat with them and they run into somebody out at the restaurant that they knew from their academy days, who smiles at them and calls them FitzSimmons like it’s the most normal thing in the world, because to everyone at SHIELD and the academy it is.

The only people it doesn’t seem normal to is, of course, her parents, who say nothing until their visitor has left the table, then it’s mere seconds later before her dad speaks up, “Did you two elope,” he asks, as if it the most normal conversation in the world.

“Dad,” Jemma says quickly and probably a bit too louldy, embarrassment coloring her cheeks.

“No, we’re not, I wouldn’t,” Fitz starts all embarrassed before mumbling off nothingness and going back to poking at his food.

And for the very briefest of moments her heart just sort of stops and she wishes that he would have finished that sentence, because not knowing what he was going to finish that with is almost worse than anything he could have said.

Though she squashes those feelings down as quickly as they come, because Fitz is her lab partner, more importantly he’s her best friend, and she’s not about to mess that up over some silly feelings.  

So instead, she gives an embarrassed laugh and asks, “where did that even come from?”

 

4.

 “You should really call them,” Fitz says, “they’re worried.”

“How would you,” she starts, before ‘oh’ of course he would know. Sometimes she swears Fitz talks to her parents more than she does, actually that might be true.

“They were worried,” he repeats in his defense.

“I can’t believe you called my parents,” Jemma says, feeling just a little bit betrayed, but at the same time rather touched.

“They called me,” he says holding his hands up in surrender, “I couldn’t just not answer the phone!”

She doesn’t end up calling them until they end of the mission, until they’ve saved the world once again (or something like that). Of course, she can’t give any of the details away, which is what they want, everybody wants an explanation for what happened, but unable to say anything else, she spends the better part of an hour assuring her mother that yes, she is alright. She even struggles out the part about the Chautari though leaves out the part about jumping out of an airplane, though sometimes more can be said about the words unspoken than those said.

“I miss being home,” she admits as their conversation draws to a close, her legs pulled tight against her chest curled up into the seat she had claimed at her own.

“You know you’re welcome home anytime,” her mother says softly, “do you think maybe if you asked one of your superiors that you could just stop by for tea or something?”

She’s relatively certain that if she asked Coulson he’d let her, he’s a lot more lenient than most SHIELD agents, so that wouldn’t be a problem. Jemma nods into the phone before realizing that obviously the person on the other end can’t see that, and speaks up instead, “Yeah, I think so.”

“And Jemma, sweetheart, you can bring your boyfriend with you, we don’t mind.”

“Mum,” she groans, “for the last time he’s not my boyfriend, we’re just… we’re just friends.”

It’s harder to say it this time, harder to admit it, because through everything they’ve done over the years, all the ups and the downs Fitz has always been there for her. A steady force in her life. She knows her feels are probably pretty obvious, her parents had been asking for years, if they could see it then anybody could.

The only problem was, it took her long enough to realize what exactly her feelings really meant, and apparently it’s taking him even longer to notice what she’s trying not to say in the breaks between their words.

So this time when she insists for probably the hundredth time that they’re just friends it feels like a dead weight inside of her, the words.

“Well, the offer still stands.”

 

5.

It feels like an eternity has passed since they first met, forced together as lab partners in general chemistry class, because nobody else wanted to be their parents. Sometimes she stays up late at night wondering how that led to this.

“You’re missing a button,” he points out from his place across her, their, bed.

“Oh shoot,” she grumbles unbuttoning the shirt that way she can shrug it off and get a new one, “you know, this wouldn’t be a problem if somebody had been a bit more careful.”

“Do you blame me,” Fitz asks.

Jemma just rolls her eyes at him as she finds a sweater from her closet this time, one that doesn’t have any buttons to accidently yank off, and pulls it over her head, ignoring the teasing whine from the bed and the mumble of, “so unfair.”

“Come on, you,” she says, going over to poke at him, “we’re going to be late.”

“What if we just don’t go,” he suggests faux casual.

“Seriously? We can’t just not go,” she insists, because the very notion is silly, “I don’t see what the big deal is, it’s not like we haven’t done this hundreds of times before.”

“But this time’s different,” Fitz grumbles in her general direction.

Jemma stresses, “if anyone should not want to go it’s me, they _love_ you.”

“Oh sure, for now they do, but just imagine when they find out that I, that we,” he starts.

“It’s not like they’ll be against it,” she levels him a hard stare.

“Why not?”

“They’re been insisting that we get together for years,” she teases, “How have you missed that?”

“Oh.”

“Also I told them last week.”

 


End file.
